Lesson Plan

Storytelling and the gift of listening are critical skills for young people. This project offers the opportunity to realize a simple idea: young people can honor someone in their lives with an interview—a grandparent, a sibling, a mentor, or a friend—sit across from them for 40 minutes, ask important questions, and listen carefully to their answers.

Project Introduction:
For this project, students will learn about the importance of storytelling, use the StoryCorps App to record an interview with an elder in their family or community, and have the option to add their interview to the StoryCorps Archive in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

This lesson plan provides materials to introduce students to StoryCorps and oral histories, prepares them to ask great questions and conduct their own interviews, and provides ideas for follow-up after the holiday weekend.

The Great Thanksgiving Listen is a technology-based assignment originally developed for high school students studying American history, social studies, English, language arts, journalism, drama, ESL, media, and technology. It has also been applied successfully as a community-building opportunity in classrooms, OST (out-of-school time) environments, community centers, living rooms, and kitchens across the country.

We invite you to adapt the resources below in whatever way best suits your needs. We recommend introducing the project at least two weeks prior to Thanksgiving to provide time for students to plan their interviews and practice using the StoryCorps App.

Objectives:

Learn about StoryCorps and the interview concept

Use questions to develop a story and express a shared experience

Create a primary source using technology (and have the option to enter it into the historical record)

2–5 hours in class. Most parts of the lesson can be structured for in-class or at-home assignments.

1–3 hours out of classroom. Students will conduct their interviews (5–40 minutes) at home or in a location convenient for the student and their partner.

PART I: About StoryCorps/Why Do Stories Matter?

Introduce students to StoryCorps and The Great Thanksgiving Listen using a selection of the following videos, animations, podcasts, and the StoryCorps mission statement.
These clips are provided in multiple formats for educational use so that teachers can access in the classroom. Unauthorized use is prohibited.

StoryCorps Classics

Title

Watch

Download

“An Intro to StoryCorps” (3 min.)
Learn more about StoryCorps in this conversation between StoryCorps Founder Dave Isay and his nephew.

“No More Questions” (4 min.)
Timeless wisdom from Kay Wang, a
strong-willed grandmother who shares stories
with her son and granddaughter.

“Eyes on the Stars” (3 min.)
A remembrance of NASA astronaut Ronald E. McNair,
who followed his childhood dreams to become the
second African-American to enter space.

“Clean Streets” (3 min.)
Sanitation workers Angelo Bruno and Eddie Nieves
reflect on their years of working together
and what they learned on the job.

“The Icing on the Cake” (3 min.)
Blanca Alvarez in conversation with her daughter,
Connie, about hardship their family faced and the
lessons learned when they came to the U.S.

Further Inspiration

Watch these intergenerational animated stories in your classroom as inspiration leading up to Thanksgiving, or invite your students to watch and share a story with the person they are going to interview.

Title

Watch

Download

“The Temple of Knowledge” (2.5 min.)
Growing up, Ronald Clark spent every night in
a library with his father, who worked as a custodian
at the New York Public Library.

“My Father, The Giant” (2 min.)
Kiamichi-tet Williams learns about his grandfather,
Melford, who was a tribal leader for the Caddo Nation
in Oklahoma.

“Detective Simmons” (3 min.)
Camaran Henson grew up thinking his grandfather
possessed superpowers. He remembers large and small
ways the man lived up to his legendary status.

“Mi Abuela Panchita” (2 min.)
A San Antonio bishop believes he is his family’s
dispenser of spiritual wisdom. He is reminded
by his abuelita that there are some things only elders can grasp.

“Silvia’s Legacy” (2.5 min.)
In the 1950s, Ellaraino travels to the Louisiana
log cabin of her elderly great-grandmother, gaining
a new perspective on what it means to be free.

StoryCorps Mission Statement

Share the StoryCorps mission statement and ask students to identify words or phrases that stand out to them, or which they think are most important.

StoryCorps’ mission is to preserve and share humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world.

We do this to remind one another of our shared humanity, to strengthen and build the connections between people, to teach the value of listening, and to weave into the fabric of our culture the understanding that everyone’s story matters. At the same time, we are creating an invaluable archive for future generations.

PART II: Great Interviews/Great Questions

Prepare students to conduct great interviews by selecting and asking “Great Questions,” identifying an interview partner, and creating thoughtful titles, summaries, and keywords for future historians and researchers.

Students can complete this entire project through the StoryCorps App interface and their corresponding user accounts at ARCHIVE.STORYCORPS.ORG. Students can select interview questions, summaries and keywords directly in the App, so they are ready to go on interview day.

Students will need to reach out to their recording partner in advance to plan a date, location, and time for their interview. When contacting their recording partners, students should describe The Great Listen and provide a few sample questions to let their partners prepare for the upcoming interview.

Learn how to download and use the StoryCorps App by practicing in class and use the resources on our App page.

Assign students to conduct their interview over Thanksgiving weekend. Remind them to make a plan with their recording partner in advance.

A complete interview requires a title, summary, and keywords.

Following the interview, students should add keywords, an updated title, and an extended summary to their interview on the app or by logging into their StoryCorps Archive account from a computer, classroom tablet, or other device.

Students should discuss privacy preferences with their recording partner for their interview before uploading it to the StoryCorps Archive.

Students who publish their interviews should email you the link to the interview.

Students who do not publish their interview should still turn in a proposed title, summary, and keywords for their interview, as well as the length of time of their interview.

There are lots of ways to participate in this project. If a student does not have access a smartphone or does not have permission to use the app, they can still complete the project using any digital recorder, or they can conduct an unrecorded interview. They should still use the worksheets and, to complete the assignment, turn in a proposed title, summary, and keywords for their interview, as well as the length of time of their interview.

PART IV: Closing/Debrief

Facilitate a discussion using the following questions:

How did your partner react to the interview experience?

How did you feel as an interviewer? What challenges or surprises did you encounter, and how did you work to address them?

Did you have the chance to go “off script” and ask a follow-up question? If so, what question did you ask, and how did that change your interview?

What question evoked a particularly memorable response?

What did you learn that changed the way you previously thought about an event, person, or your recording partner?

What makes an interview different from a text as a historical reference?

What components contribute to differing perspectives of history?

What could future historians learn about 2018 from listening to your interview?

What would you do differently if you were to conduct another interview?

Who else in your life would you like to interview?

What questions would you like to be asked in an interview?

Follow-up Activities

Share your interviews with us @StoryCorps #TheGreatListen.Listen to your interview again.Watch the Intergenerational Stories playlist with your family at home, and then share some of the stories that make your family unique (use the app to record the conversation, if you like!).Write a reflection paper, a follow-up essay, or a poem inspired by your interview.Transcribe a part of your interview, and/or use quotes from your interview to support another project or research paper.Create a video inspired by a TED Talk with Adobe Spark Video based on the process of preparing for and conducting an interview and present it to the class.Edit your interview using free editing software (such as Audacity) to create a two-minute excerpt.Produce a podcast using excerpts from different interviews.Create a visual storyboard of the process of preparing for and conducting the interview, plus what was learned, and present it to the class.Draw or paint a portrait of your partner inspired by your interview with them.Hold an assembly to highlight favorite stories from your class.Coordinate with your school or local library to start an oral history project.Use the app to investigate a social issue in your community (make a list of “sources” you’d like to interview).

Extra Credit for Teachers

Host a classroom listening party. Use the community feature on ARCHIVE.STORYCORPS.ORG to collect your students’ stories in one central place, and then invite students to share out a 2-3 minute clip from each interview.